Nduom promises free SHS, bungalows for all teachers

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Category: The WorkShop

Created on Tuesday, 27 March 2012 00:00

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Education

Founder and leader of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) says free and compulsory education is not a matter of choice but a statutory obligation which every government must implement...More Details

Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom is angry at the phenomenon in which over 1.5 million BECE school children over the last ten years have been left as dropouts with no skill or future to look up to.

“All of us must be angry enough. If you take 1.5 million children and they are walking about aimlessly. it is a threat, its a threat to society. It is a threat to you and a threat to me and we must feel a high sense of urgency to [stem the tide]” he stated.

Quoting with the reverence to the Directive Principles of the State policy in the 1992 Constitution, the former Convention People’s Party presidential candidate said “the state shall provide educational facilities at all levels and in all the regions of Ghana and shall to the greatest extent feasible make those facilities available to our citizens."

The constitution further posited that government shall within two years after the constitution has come into force make necessary provision for the implementation of the aforementioned state policy within a ten year period.

The constitution is now 20 years and successive governments have failed to implement that part of the constitution, a situation Dr. Nduom regrets in no small way.

Speaking on MultiTV and Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile, Dr. Nduom said free education is a must and governments must begin to think about how to implement it rather than argue about its feasibility.

Apart from the free SHS, Dr Nduom said teachers must be motivated without which the policy will fail.

In that regard, he said bungalows will be provided right from kindergarten to the universities to serve as a motivating factor for the teachers.

He said the current Teacher Training Institutions must be upgraded into universities so it will no longer be seen, erroneously, as an option for failures who are unable to access tertiary education.

It is possible

Dr Nduom insisted the policy is far too possible to achieve if the country sets its priorities right.

He said the PPP will commit 30 percent of the consolidated fund to the implementation of the policy.

By his party’s calculation a total of 5.5 billion cedis has been costed for the successful implementation of the policy.

Originator

A deputy Information Minister James Agyanim Boateng who was also on the show credited Dr Nduom for being the originator of the free SHS, adding he has been a lot more diligent in explaining the policy than the embarrassing Nana Akufo Addo who fumbled in his explanation on the same policy at the BBC Hardtalk programme.

He said Nana Addo could have done a better job in explaining the policy, having christened it as a signature project.

He said the NPP flagbearer appears to be shifting gradually from the policy having initially promised to make tertiary education free.

The New Patriotic Party’s Kwabena Agyapong was quick to rebut what he said were deliberate distortion of facts by the deputy Information Minister.

He said at no point did Nana Addo promise a free tertiary education and challenged Agyanim Boateng to find out who the policy of free SHS will be credited to - Nana Addo or Papa Kwesi Nduom.

He said issues about education should not be politicized and commended the non-partisan approach being adopted by Nduom in discussing the matter.

Source: Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com